Bengal's Heart (49 page)

But her father had warned her and she had promised him. She was a big girl, just like her brother and sister. She would carve out her own future, and she would succeed. She had promised him that there was nothing this county could do to destroy her.

She was going to teach, marry and raise babies in the mountains. That was her dream. And her dream was crumbling beneath her feet. She felt her world shifting on its axis, felt the shame and the rage building inside her until she wondered if her head would explode with it.

Nadine sniffed. “You have a week to leave and we’ll not resort to putting the pictures on the Internet.”

She stared back at the pinched-face bitch that so hated Shane Mayes simply because he was the sheriff’s son, and the sheriff refused to kowtow to her or her brother. It was rumored Sheriff Zeke Mayes kowtowed to no man, or woman.

“I really don’t give a fuck where you put them.” She turned back to Nadine. It wouldn’t do her any good, Nadine would do as she wished anyway. “I’m not leaving Somerset.”

“My dear Ms. Walker, your employment here—” the principal began.

“Is obviously at an end.” Caitlyn smiled tightly as she picked up the photos and shoved them in her case. “I’ll clear my desk this evening, Mr. Thompson.”

“You’ll leave town,” Dayle Mackay stated, his voice like ice.

The man was a viper. His son, the town’s bad boy, had a heart of gold. But this man, he was black, evil. It was in his eyes, in his face. It was almost enough to send a shiver down her spine. But she didn’t shiver, her spine straightened and pure Walker arrogance and stubborn pride kicked in. Her father had once warned her that her pride would be the death of her.

“Go to hell, Mackay.” She could barely speak. Fury was ripping through her, tearing at her.

“Your reputation will be less than nothing by time we finish with you, Caitlyn.” Nadine’s tight-lipped, superior smile looked like a viper’s curl of the lip. Anticipatory. Ready to strike. “You don’t want to stay here.”

“No, you don’t want me to stay because you’re terrified that if one person stands up to your viciousness then others will,” she stated calmly. “I’m doing more than standing up to it, Nadine. I’m warning you now, you can’t hurt me.”

Nadine’s smile was cold. “Your position within the school system has been terminated, Ms. Walker, and your standing in this county will be history.” Her tone assured Rogue she felt she had done the damage she wanted to do.

Caitlyn forced herself to laugh. Her father had taught her how to be strong, her mother had taught her how to be a lady. But her grandmother, ah, her grandmother had taught her how to be a bitch and made Caitlyn enjoy every lesson.

Bess Evansworth was a force of nature and a law unto herself. And Caitlyn had been her favorite. She had always allowed Caitlyn to tag along with her and her cronies to their luncheons and teas. And Caitlyn had learned.

“Put them on the Internet.” Caitlyn’s smile was all teeth. “I dare you. Better yet, mail a set to my grandparents. Their address is easy to find. Evansworth. Taite and Bessamine Evansworth, Boston. I’m sure my grandmother will get a tickle out of it. Though, Daddy might return to Somerset.” She shrugged as though she didn’t care. “You could take your chances.”

She shoved the few possessions from her desk into her bag. She didn’t have much. They hadn’t really given her time to settle in. She could fight the school board, but who really wanted to. She’d come here with dreams, and over the past months she had learned how ineffectual those dreams were in these mountains.

Somerset was beautiful, inspiring and filled with dark, poisonous little creatures just waiting to strike. She had sensed that during the first few months settling in. She knew it the moment she had met these two, and now she felt its swift, sharp retribution.

The pictures were in her purse, but she knew that meant so very little. Simply that she had her own copy. Damn them.

“Staying here will serve no purpose,” Dayle Mackay snorted. “You’re not wanted, you little bitch, any more than your ignorant father was wanted or any of the Walker clan. The lot of you are nothing but white trash whores and drug guzzling bastards.”

Oh, one day, he’d pay for that one. They would both pay for that one.

“Oh well, far be it from me to prove you wrong,” she replied mockingly. “Do whatever the hell you want with the pictures. But”—she paused as she picked up the oversized bag at her side—“be watching for me. When you least expect it.” She looked between the two. “When you very least expect it, I’ll be there. And it won’t be trumped-up photos that are used to break either one of you. It will be the truth.”

She left the school, and she left her dreams behind her. She refused to call her parents. This was her life, and the thought of dragging them into the mess she had allowed to develop made her cringe.

It was her fault. She should have done as her father warned her and let his friends who managed the bar he still owned in town know who she was when she went there, rather than hiding from them. It wouldn’t have happened then, because they would have watched out for her.

The problem was, she hadn’t wanted anyone to watch out for her. She had been too confident that she could watch out for herself. She was an adult. She was able to defend herself. In the arrogance of youth she had convinced herself that nothing and no one could touch her.

She had entered that bar as confident and arrogant as any young woman that had just turned twenty-one, watched the excitement and fun with a sense of anticipation and she had let herself be betrayed and nearly used. She had made that mistake. It was no one’s fault but her own. She would live with it.

She wasn’t about to leave Pulaski County though. As she drove home, she stared out at the mountains, watched the sun blaze full and bright as it began its descent in the evening sky, and she knew she couldn’t leave.

She had been raised in the city, but these mountains, they were a part of her. From the moment she had entered them, she had known she had come home, and she’d known she never wanted to be anywhere else.

But now, she knew an adjustment would have to be made.

Her eyes narrowed, her jaw clenched. Damn Nadine Grace and Dayle Mackay. She wasn’t going to be run out of town. She wouldn’t be defeated like that. They had won this round, and those pictures would probably be on the Internet within hours. But that didn’t mean they had beaten her.

Her hands clenched on the steering wheel as she drew in a hard, deep breath. Her father had always called her his little Rogue. He would smile fondly when she dressed in her ‘good girl’ clothes as he called them, and his eyes would always twinkle as though he knew something she didn’t.

“You’re as wild as the wind,” he would tell her, and she had always denied it.

But now, she could feel that part of herself burning beneath the surface of the ‘good girl’. The dreams of teaching had always held her back. A teacher had to be circumspect. She had to be careful. But Caitlyn Rogue Walker was no longer a teacher. She no longer had to worry about being circumspect. She didn’t have to worry about protecting a job she didn’t have.

She flipped on the car’s turn signal and took the road that headed to the little bar outside of town. It had begun there, and if her father knew what had happened, he would burn it to the ground. Unfortunately, she had loved being in that damned bar.

She had sat in the corner, watched, devoured the atmosphere and longed to be something more than a “good girl” while she had been there.

There was an apartment overhead. The manager, Jonesy, was a good friend of her father’s, as were the bouncers that worked there. She only had to walk in, announce who she was and take over ownership.

Had her father somehow sensed her dreams would go awry here more than he had told her? Because he had offered her the bar. Told her that when she got tired of playing the political games that filled the educational system that she could always run the bar. And his eyes had been filled with knowledge, as though he had known the wildness inside his daughter would eventually be drawn free.

Her reputation had been destroyed because of whatever had happened there the one night she hadn’t been cautious enough. Now, it was time to remake that reputation.

Rogue was young, but she was pragmatic. She was bitter now, and she knew that bitterness would fester until Nadine Grace and Dayle Mackay had paid for what they had done. But she wasn’t going to let it destroy her. She wouldn’t give them the satisfaction of destroying her.

She smiled in anticipation, in anger. Nadine Grace and Dayle Mackay had no idea what they had done. They had destroyed Caitlyn Walker, but nothing and no one could destroy the Rogue she intended to become.

Sheriff Ezekiel Mayes eased from his current lover’s bed and moved through the bedroom to the shower. The widow he was currently seeing slept on, oblivious to his defection as he showered and dressed.

It would be the last night he spent with her, he knew. Zeke insisted on privacy in his relationships. He didn’t publicly date. He didn’t claim any woman. There was no room in his life, his heart or his secrets for such a woman. And she was steadily pushing for more. He knew if he didn’t break it off now then it would only become a mess he didn’t want to face.

He didn’t want ties. He didn’t want the mess that came from claiming any woman as his own. He didn’t want the danger he knew a woman of his could face. He was walking a thin line and he knew it. He wouldn’t make his balance more precarious by taking a lover that could become a weakness. Calvin Walker’s daughter was definitely a weakness, simply because of her affiliation with the Walkers and others’ hatred for them. The job he had set for himself demanded a fragile balance at the moment. Maintaining that balance would be impossible if he gave in to the needs clawing at his gut right now for one innocent little school teacher.

As he moved from the bathroom Mina rolled over and blinked back at him sleepily. Slumberous dark eyes flickered over him as a pout pursed her full, sensual lips.

“It’s not even dawn yet,” she muttered, obviously less than pleased to find him leaving.

She should have expected it. He always left before dawn.

“I need to get into the office early,” he told her. And he did, but it could have waited.

Mina Harlow was a generous, warm lover, but she wanted a relationship, and Zeke wasn’t ready to complicate his life to that extent. He hid enough of himself the way it was, he wasn’t interested in hiding it on a regular basis.

“Whatever.” She stretched beneath the blankets before eyeing him with a glimmer of amusement. “Oh, I forgot to tell you. That little school teacher that looks at you with stars in her eyes, Miss Walker. The school board fired her last week.”

He didn’t want to hear this particular piece of gossip again. He sure as hell didn’t want to hear the satisfaction in Mina’s tone at the fact that the little schoolteacher had been hurt. Mina was gloating over it, simply because Caitlyn hadn’t hid her interest in him.

This was bullshit. Catty, snide and hurtful. He’d thought better of Mina at one time.

“I don’t like gossip, Mina,” he reminded her.

She gave a soft little laugh. “Come on, Zeke, it’s all over town and now it’s hit the Internet. Pictures of her in the cutest little threesome with another couple. Who would have guessed she had it in her.”

Zeke wouldn’t have, and he still didn’t believe it. He’d heard about the pictures more than he wanted to. He refused to look at them.

“Miss Goody Two Shoes got caught having her fun,” Mina said smoothly. “I can’t believe she thought she could get away with playing like that here. She should have known better.”

Zeke’s lips thinned as he sat at the bottom of the bed and pulled his boots on. Dammit, he didn’t need to hear this again. He could feel that edge of burning anger in his gut, the one that warned him he was letting a woman get too close.

Caitlyn Rogue Walker was nothing to him, he told himself. He couldn’t let her become something to him either. She was too damned innocent, no matter what those photos might show. Not to mention too damned young.

“Too bad the camera person didn’t take a few more.” Mina yawned then. “Miss Walker wasn’t even fully undressed, but she was definitely getting ready to have a good time.”

His jaw bunched. The innocent Miss Walker had pissed off the wrong people, and Zeke felt responsible for that. Hell, this was just what he needed. He had steered clear of her for the express purpose of making certain she was never targeted for any reason, because of him, and she had ended up as a target because of his son instead.

She had caught the attention of two of the town’s worse inhabitants. A brother and sister who delighted in destroying anyone they could. She had caught their attention by defending his son at school.

He felt responsible. It was his son, and despite his knowledge that she had been set up, he still hadn’t managed to find a way to punish those who had hurt her or to tamp down his growing interest in a woman he had no business touching.

He could feel the curling knot of anger, a hint of territorial possessiveness where the teacher was concerned, and squelched it immediately. Miss Walker was too young, too innocent. She wasn’t a woman that would accept a sex only relationship, nor was she a woman Zeke would be able to hide the darker core of his sexuality with, as he did other women. Women such as Mina. Women who touched only his body, never his heart. Miss Walker had the potential to touch the inner man, and he refused to give her the chance.

He’d failed to protect one woman in his life already, he wouldn’t make that mistake again.

“She’s Calvin Walker’s daughter, you know,” Mina continued. “Hell, I thought he was dead. What’s he doing with a daughter? Damned Walkers have never been worth crap, so it shouldn’t be surprising.”